ArtiGras Podcast · ArtiGras Fine Arts Festival

From Broadway to Jupiter: Andrew Kato and the Evolution of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

A Tony Awards producer asks why Andrew Kato is in the editing bay every day, and he says, “I just showed up.”

Sarah begins close to home. She roots the conversation in Palm Beach County arts, then asks Andrew to walk through the path that brought him to the Maltz Jupiter Theater. His title carries plenty: chief executive and producing artistic director, which puts him in the middle of the art, the schedule, the budget, and the local pride around the place. The tone stays loose and friendly. Sarah keeps coming back to the scale of the work, but she also wants to know what people feel when they walk in. Andrew makes the theater sound less like a room with seats and more like a whole evening. He talks about preshow pieces that start before the curtain, including a free room that opens ninety minutes early with Halloween-themed figures and film loops. It sounds playful without getting precious. The point is simple: give people a way into the story before the show begins. Then the episode gets into the hard stuff. Because the Maltz builds everything in-house, the work stretches into a fifteen-thousand-square-foot production center with ten full-time people making the sets. Andrew talks about early starts, Florida heat, limited air conditioning, and the giant fan that keeps the shop moving. Sarah catches the charm of that right away. She pictures Beauty and the Beast pieces sitting beside something plain and realistic, and that image does a lot of work. The stage magic comes from real labor: measuring, lifting, painting, fixing, and getting it all to fit. By the end, the conversation feels like a fond tour of a theater that cares about the audience before, during, and after the show. Andrew signs off warmly, and the shared love of theater is easy to hear.

As heard by us

A warm theater conversation that turns backstage craft into a story about place and public life.

Andrew Kato's path from a Jupiter childhood, with roots in New Jersey and London, gives the episode a strong sense of place, and Sarah LaPierre keeps the focus on the people and routines that make a theater feel lived in.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a Jupiter theater story with real backstage texture.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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